Industrial Decline- Sambre Meuse valley Flashcards

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1
Q

How did industry develop in the sambre Meuse valley?

A

A core region is one that is centrally located and the focus of many modes of transport. I is economically developed and is the cultural, social and political centre

One of the most industrialised regions in the world during the 19th century

The sambre Meuse was Belgium’s economic core region in the 1800s and 1900s as the industrial revolution was centred around coal as a resource, raw material and source of energy

Industries which used coal as a source of energy were steel-making, engineering, chemicals, textiles, clothing and electronics

Coal fields were located at borinage, Liege and charleroi and they provided larges scale employment both indirect and direct

At its peak 100,000 workers were employed in 250 collieries which mined 100 million tonnes of coal a year

The steal industry employed 50,000 directly in the region and thousands more had jobs building factories, homes, roads and railways as a result of the exploitation of coal

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2
Q

What human and physical factors made the coalmines close down?

A

In the Mid-career 20th century the region had become economically depressed as coal is a non-renuable resource used up by the 1960s

Cheaper coal was imported from Poland and the USA which led to the last of Belgium’s coal mines closing in the 1980s by ESC

The older coal fields could not beat the competition in Japan, Korea and Brazil

The areas around the coal fields experienced deIndustrialization and last coal field closed in 1984

Unemployment ( 20%) became a big factor as coal fields closed loosing their primary economic function in the area

Modern industry’s that we’re set up were automated and didn’t need manual labour and offered no employment opportunities

Coal seams contributed to polluting the environment- the landscape became scarred by abandoned mines and unattractive Slag heaps

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3
Q

What were the solutions to Industrial decline?

A

Infrastructure has been improved with the construction of the Albert canal which links the region to the N.Sea making it more accessible

To overcome social and economic problems the European structural funds for 2007-2013 allocated 15 billion to support economic development

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